


There's Just One Thing I Need

by behindskylines (deanlovessammymorethanpie)



Category: Bandom, Panic! at the Disco
Genre: Christmas Fluff, Established Relationship, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-11
Updated: 2013-10-11
Packaged: 2017-12-29 03:23:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,298
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1000299
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/deanlovessammymorethanpie/pseuds/behindskylines
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ryan just can't figure out what to get his boyfriend for Christmas.</p>
            </blockquote>





	There's Just One Thing I Need

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted on December 21, 2008 on livejournal under the name himmerethwen (an lj username I used previously).

“He hasn’t told you anything about what he wants for Christmas?”

“Well, contrary to popular belief, your boyfriend doesn’t call me with his Christmas present wish list.”

“I wasn’t implying that he would.” Ryan fidgeted with a box set of Beatles albums before placing them back on the shelf. “I was just wondering if he had mentioned anything that he wanted to you, seeing how it’s like, two days before Christmas. I have some small things for him, but I’m still looking for his big present.”

“Here’s an idea, Ryan.” Spencer sighed. “Why don’t you ask him yourself?”

“Don’t you think that that would ruin the surprise of Christmas presents?”

“Not particularly. Maybe Jon knows of something he wants. Have you asked him yet?”

Ryan wandered down the aisle of the music shop, picking up odd albums when the cover art interested him. “No, I haven’t. I just, I want this Christmas to be special for him. It’s the first one that we’ll spend living together and I want it to be a good one.” 

“I know, Ryan. I get it. Call Jon, see if Brendon mentioned anything to him, yeah?”

“Yeah. Thanks, Spin.”

“No problem. I’ll see you by my house for New Year’s.”

“Yeah, see you then.”

Ryan walked out of the store with two CDs--one for his mom, and one for himself. 

***

Brendon was stringing Christmas lights around the front porch when Ryan pulled up in the driveway. His nose was red from the cold, and he had on a pair of Ryan’s fingerless gloves.

“Hey baby.” Brendon greeted Ryan as Ryan started up the stairs. 

“Hey, yourself.” Ryan knocked the remaining snow off his boots before stepping up onto the porch. “Do you need any help? And why are you doing this now, instead of, you know, last week when you did the rest of the house?”

Brendon shrugged and glanced at him over his shoulder, taping the end of a string of lights down before walking over. “Why not? And I don’t need any help. I just have one left, for around that window.” He pointed at the small window next to the front door before wrapping his arms around Ryan’s bulky jacket. “Did you have fun shopping?”

Ryan shrugged a little before falling into the hug, laughing slightly when Brendon attempted to warm his nose against the hollow behind his ear. “You’re freezing, babe. Hurry up and come inside. I’ll go make sure the fire is going.”

Brendon let him go with a loud kiss on his cheek, and laughed as Ryan stumbled back toward the door, rubbing warmth back into his flesh.

“Even your lips are cold!”

***

“Yeah, Spencer said that you’d be calling soon.”

Ryan sighed into the phone before leaning over to make sure that the casserole was still simmering away. “Yeah, so, did he tell you why I’d call?”

“Yeah.” Jon answered, and Ryan could hear the jingling of a cat’s bell. 

“And do you have any ideas on what I should do?”

“I don’t know, Ryan. Have you tried asking him?”

“See, Jon, like I told Spencer, I don’t want to have to ask him. It would ruin the surprise. And I want this Christmas to be special.”

“So, you think that calling everyone else that Brendon is acquainted with will solve your problem, rather than just going to source and asking him yourself?”

Ryan did feel kinda retarded, but still he answered, “Yeah,” forcing himself to not turn it into a question.

“What did you get him last year?”

“Um, I don’t think you really want to know.”

“Oh, Ryan Ross, you dirty dirty boy!”

“I didn’t tell you what it was!”

“Small graces, I’m telling you.”

“Thanks for the help, Jon.”

Ryan hung up the phone while Jon was still in the midst of a hearty belly laugh. He muttered to himself, ‘Stupid Jon Walker, with his stupid beard and flip flops,’ before the timer on dinner startled him into motion.

***

Brendon came into the living room from the kitchen later that night, carrying a tray full of gingerbread cookies, singing under his breath. 

Ryan watched him walk through the room, to the table by the fireplace, and start arranging a few cookies on a plate there. “Bren?”

Glancing away from his gingerbread girl, Brendon looked up at Ryan, “Hm?”

Placing his book facedown on the arm of the chair, Ryan asked him, “What are you singing?”

Brendon went back to arranging his frosted cookies on the plate, and answered, _“Do you know the muffin man?_.”

Ryan stood up from his chair and draped the afghan that had been around his feet across the high back of the chair. “You do know that those aren’t muffins, right?” He said, as he put another log on the fire and watched it roar back to life. 

Brendon nodded, “Yeah, but there aren’t any gingerbread cookie songs, Ryan.”

“I wonder why that is…”

Brendon smiled at Ryan’s mocking tone, inspired. “Well, rest assured, Ross. I’m going to write one.”

Ryan grinned down at his boyfriend, and held a hand out to him, “Come on, Bren. I’ll make you some hot chocolate with the little marshmallows you like.”

***

Ryan paced down the aisle of the instrument shop one last time, looking at the same guitar for about the tenth time since he walked in the store. It was a gorgeous guitar, a Fender Telecaster Deluxe, in a bright cherry sunburst finish. Brendon already had two of them, in different colors, and Ryan was halfway to convinced that Brendon would love this one too.

He took his phone out of his pocket, opened his messages and reread the saved draft he found there. 

**bden, what you want for x-mas? <3**

Shaking his head, he went up to the counter to pay for the drumsticks and guitar strap he had picked out for Spencer and Jon, respectively. As he was leaving, a new text message trilled in his pocket, and he panicked briefly over if he had accidentally pressed _Send_ , or not.

**any luck with b’s big gift? flight should be there around 6pm xmas.**

Ryan scowled as he typed out a quick “no” in reply, and stomped away to his car.

***

When Ryan got home, Brendon wasn’t there. Sighing into the empty living room, he dropped the bag from the instrument store on the couch and plopped down next to it. This big present business was driving him insane. He had some smaller gifts, a new robe, a CD Brendon mentioned wanting, but there was something missing. It wasn’t that he didn’t know what Brendon liked, it was just that this Christmas was supposed to be special, and important, and Ryan was starting to think that he was over-thinking everything. He sat on the couch for a good twenty minutes, just thinking about what he was going to do, because Christmas was **tomorrow** and he still didn’t have the ultimate present for his boyfriend, and God, he really was the world’s worst boyfriend for not even having an idea of what to get. He just wanted to show Brendon that he loved him, and that he had never been happier than right now, living with Brendon, getting to wake up with him every morning, watch him fall asleep every night. Ryan loved that he knew all of the little things about Brendon, like how he liked to sleep on his stomach, with one foot stuck out of the covers, and how he liked to eat his cereal after it got a little soggy so that it didn’t cut the roof of his mouth. He knew things like how Brendon stood in front of the stove while he was cooking, and he was ashamed to admit it, but there were times, back when Brendon first moved in, when Ryan would call the house phone, just to listen to Brendon’s voice, saying, “You’ve reached Ryan and Brendon. We can’t come to the phone right now, but if you leave a message, as soon as we get the chance, we’ll give you a call back. Have a great day!” 

He was completely in love with Brendon, and he just wanted to show him how much he appreciated him, and wanted to spend the rest of his life with him.

And when asked later, Ryan will readily admit that he felt like a total idiot that it took him so long to figure what to do for Brendon for Christmas, but frankly, he is still proud of himself for even figuring it out in the first place.

***

The mall was filled with late night shoppers doing their own last minute shopping. He knew that the store he was looking for would be open, yet he still breathed a sigh of relief when he saw that it was. There was a saleslady who was bound and determined to show him practically everything in the store, but in the end, Ryan picked out one of the simplest designs, something elegant, but not showy. Something that he felt Brendon would love. 

She put it in its box, and asked if Ryan wanted it gift wrapped. Ryan shook his head, took the box from her, and shoved it into his pocket. One of the rounded corners poked him in the hip as he paid for the present, and headed back toward his car. Once there, he sat there for a good ten minutes just looking at it.

It was a ring. A solid silver ring, with nothing extremely fancy about it. It shone in the parking lot lights overhead, and Ryan felt his decision in his heart. It was right.

As soon as he got home, he was going to ask Brendon to marry him.

***

He nudged the front door closed with his hip, and locked it behind his back, out of habit. “Brendon?” He called out into the house, his heart in his throat.

“In here!” 

Ryan followed his voice into the living room, fingers twitching over the box in his pocket, when he found his boyfriend covered in half of a Christmas tree. 

“Wha…what happened?” Ryan knelt onto the floor next to Brendon, and took a few fake pine needles out of his hair. 

Brendon looked up at Ryan from his place amongst the fake tree limbs, pine needles, decorations, and lights. And laughed. “I was sitting on the couch, reading, when something out of the corner of my eye caught my attention. The star at the top of the tree wasn’t sitting right. It was off-centered, even though you told me it wasn’t when we decorated the tree.”

“It wasn’t!”

Brendon smiled, and continued, “So, I got up to fix it, and in the process, somehow lost my balance, got tangled up in the lights, and took down half the tree. I seriously spent the last five minutes laughing at myself before you got home.”

Ryan smiled at him, and even helped him get his left foot free from the lights before succumbing to his laughter. “Only you, Brendon…only you.”

Laughing next to him on the floor, Brendon nodded. 

His laughter turning into a small smile, Ryan took a hard look at Brendon and realized again just how much he loved him, and how much he wanted to spend every trivial and special and stupid and huge moment with him. He wasn’t even nervous as he took Brendon’s hands into his own. “Brendon?”

Brendon’s laughter died down into a grin, as he said, “Yeah?”

“Marry me?”

Brendon’s grin grew even bigger. 

Ryan took the ring box out of his pocket, and opened it, holding it out for Brendon to see inside. Brendon’s smile dimmed slightly, and his eyes grew softer. “Oh, oh, Ryan,” he managed to get out before he started laughing and crying at the same time. And then, he stood up, and walked away.

Vastly confused, Ryan stood up too, and quietly asked, “Brendon?”

Still laughing, Brendon dug around under what was left of the tree, and came up with a small box, wrapped in green and red, with Ryan’s name on it. He handed it to Ryan with a tear sliding down his cheek and a smile on his lips.

“What’s going…what?” Ryan stumbled.

“Open it.”

Ryan slowly unwrapped the box, and found himself looking at a box similar to the one that Brendon was holding. He opened it, and found a ring. A solid silver ring, with nothing extremely fancy about it. It shone in the remaining lights of the Christmas tree, and Ryan could feel his heart in this throat again.

“I was going to ask you tomorrow morning, after we opened up everything else, while you still had your bed hair and the scarf that’s still under the tree on. I had a speech and everything.” 

Ryan looked up into Brendon’s smile, and whispered, “A speech?”

Brendon leaned closer into Ryan, wrapped his arms around his waist, and nodded. “A whole speech, and you ruined it, Ryan Ross.”

“You could still give me the speech, if you want…”

“I’d rather do this…” And Brendon kissed him, hard and deep and full on the lips. His tongue swept across Ryan’s lower lip, and Ryan wasted no time opening up for him, moaning into it. One of Brendon’s hands slid down to his ass, and cupped it, dragging Ryan closer, before sliding it under Ryan’s shirt, prompting him to break away just long enough to get shirts off. Brendon fell to his knees, and pulled Ryan down with him. 

And as they laid back onto the floor, pine needles in their hair, lights casting shadows onto bare skin, and small toy soldiers and angels looking on, Brendon sighed into Ryan’s ear, “This is the best Christmas ever.”

**Author's Note:**

> As always, thanks for reading! <3


End file.
